1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lever type connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some known lever type connectors are provided with a male housing having a receptacle and carrying a lever, a female housing to be fittable into the receptacle, and a moving plate movable in the receptacle. The female housing and the moving plate are provided with cam pins that engage with cam grooves of the lever. The lever is rotated from a connection start position to a connection end position to draw the female housing and the moving plate into the receptacle by the action of cams, thereby connecting the male and female connectors.
The lever and the moving plate of the prior art lever type connector are assembled with the male housing at a factory. This housing is shipped to a site of assembling where it is assembled with a bracket and then connected with the female housing. In this case, a rotatable range of the lever during the connection is set such that the lever will not interfere with the bracket. However, a limit in the rotatable range of the lever may cause the lever to project from the outer surface of the male housing in an isolated manner before being assembled with the bracket. If the male housing is shipped in such a state, the lever may be broken by interference with other members.
To avoid this problem, the rotatable range of the lever may be made wider than its rotatable range during the connection of the housings so as to locate the lever in a position where other members are unlikely to interfere with the lever when the male housing is shipped. However, the cam pins of the moving plate are engaged with the cam grooves of the lever. Thus widening of the rotatable range of the lever means a larger moving stroke of the moving plate in the receptacle. Consequently, there is a limit in widening the rotatable range of the lever. A forcible attempt to widen the rotatable range results in the enlargement of the receptacle.
In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to make the rotatable or pivotable range of a lever wider than its rotatable or pivotable range during the connection of male and female housings without changing a moving stroke of a moving plate.